PRO-CON: Should employers be required to use E-Verify, the government’s computerized identification system? No

E-Verify is bad policy for both employers and employees, and now we discover it would also be bad for taxpayers and senior citizens, costing more than $40 billion in lost tax and Social Security revenue.

With less than 1% of employers participating in the optional verify program currently in place, it has already faced staggering bureaucratic problems.

Halting the expansion of such a system should be a no-brainer politically for any member of Congress hoping to keep his or her job.

Retiring members voting for the bill would do well to remember they, too, could face ridiculous hiring delays of an E-Verified work force.

The Congressional Budget Office’s estimate should signal to House members that the Shuler-Tancredo E-Verify bill is the wrong approach to immigration policy.

E-Verify should be scrapped.

Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel for the ACLU